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afterRubens.org > The debate so far > Discussion board |
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| Discussion Board (most recommended first) |
Part of what makes the Samson and Delilah so interesting as a work of art is the extreme disparity in the response it evokes from people - both those who have seen it perhaps just once, as well as scholars who may have studied it for half a lifetime.
Below you will find comments both for and against the attribution, as well as more general observations that visitors to the site have sent in. Please recommend the comments you find most interesting and let us know how you see it too.
You are viewing comments ordered by the number of reader recommendations they have recieved; you can also order them chronologically with the most recent first.
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I think this website, although impressively put together, is missing the point. Whether or not the painting is by Rubens doesn't matter in the long run. When you really step back and look at it, it's a great painting, no matter who painted it. Art will last forever, but this painting and all the money the National Gallery paid for it won't, so why should we care in the first place? We should just enjoy it for what it is.
Kevin
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I found this site and the problems you raise more than interesting. In particular, your presentation is excellent especially because it is so specific and it could be used by teachers to suggest how to analyze the elements of any painting. Most impressive.
Your analysis has convinced me that there is indeed a problem here. Your comments about the amputated toes, the beard and the carpet certainly support your case. [As far as the missing toes are concerned, it is hard to explain why even a lazy painter would do this. The two copies of the original [lost?] painting are further cogent elements in your arguement.
In any case, do let my congratulate those who designed this site for their intelligence for a site that is outstanding for clarity and interest.
Finally, it's not clear to me why you people are doing this?
Thanks again.
Yours truly,
Luther Link
[author of THE DEVIL;A MASK WITHOUT A FACE, Reaktion books, London]
Luther Link, Professor, Kawasaki, JAPAN
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Aliens at the edge of the universe observing us through weak telescopes can see that this isn't by Rubens.
ross miller, london, uk
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Looks like a victorian pre-raphaelite work
Richard King, Geologist, East Sussex, England
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what seems to be an artistic claim against imitative art here, is more nearly a political argument about sincerity.
Oleg Jankovsky, writer, moskow
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From the evidence presented here it certainly raises doubts of authenticity. I would go as far to say that I believe (for what it is worth) that the painting is not by Rubens .
Alan Garfield, Retired manufacturer, London, UK
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What happened to the contemplation of fine art as an exercise of human freedom, or to the dignity of individual reason over authority? The National Gallery’s (lack of) engagement with questions about Samson and Delilah provides an interesting acid test for its commitment to these ideals.
According to enlightenment tradition, disinterestedness is a central aspect of fine art contemplation. Abstraction from worldly interests is conceived precisely as a condition of artistic integrity. Though judgments of personal relations, commerce, and politics are invariably tainted by parochial needs and concerns, discussion in fine art is supposed to deal instead in pure rational considerations accessible to each and every individual. In putative abstraction from accidents of birth, rank, or fortune (i.e. floating free from ulterior motives and prejudice), debate about fine art is thus envisaged on a kind of democratic model.
“Everyone has to admit that if a judgment about beauty is mingled with the least interest then it is very partial and not a pure judgment of taste. In order to play the judge in matters of taste we must not be in the least biased in favour of the thing… but must be wholly indifferent about it” (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment Part 1, Div. 1, Book 1, §2)
Perhaps the National Gallery lacks confidence to take this idea to heart. The specifics of Kant’s account of disinterestedness are famously implausible and austere, and his optimism about the possibility of universal rational convergence misguided. But disillusionment with that project should not force a retreat from reason to authority; nor eclipse the insight that discussion of fine art as such is not to be driven by issues of money, status, power, and the rest. Not only political but also contemporary religious and moral discussion seems irrevocably tied up with the material interests of opposing groups, constantly undermining and distorting possibilities for free and communal human discussion. Art precisely promises an escape.
Here, if anywhere, we might hope to transcend the parochial. And the National Gallery should recognize this Rubens debate as an opportunity; to communicate disinterestedly, as a community of individuals, on a level - whether or not as pure Kantian ‘free spirits’.
Naomi Goulder, Philosophy PhD and Advertising, London, UK
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Based on your presentation of the facts as you see them it would be hard to disagree with you. Maybe it is just my computers less than stellar photo quality, but even with a magnifying glass I was unable to see the strip of bodice above the breat in the 2nd copy. I agree the issue of the missing toes is Huge. Would Sampson have been the last figure painted?
Kaye
Kaye Manly
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It seems, that the National Gallery while facing a severe dilemma, decided to endorse talented Mr. Ripley’s claim, that he would rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody.Leaving us with no dilemma concerning the “After” or after Rubens, of ‘Samson and Delidah’.
Ivano, Marescotti, lawyer, Florence, Italy
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“Each answer remains in force as an answer only as long as it is rooted in questioning.”
Martin Heidegger, “ The Origin of the Work of Art”
It appears that, this site looks into ‘Samson and Delilah’, from the Heideggerian perspective, not in order to cast doubt but so as to compel conviction. In view of that, one cannot but wonder, whether the National Gallery’s answer, on the question of the origin of this work of art, will remain in force.
Sozita Gudouna
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